Staff Reporter :
The Criminal Investigation Department [CID] on Thursday submitted a supplementary charge-sheet against 32 people including some top-ranking leaders of the then BNP-led four -party alliance government in the murder case of Awami League leader and former Finance Minister SAMS Kibria.
Of the accused, there are ex-Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s political secretary Harris Chowdhury and Sylhet City Corporation mayor Ariful Haque Chowdhury, Habiganj mayor Golam Kibria Gaus, Habiganj district BNP general secretary GK Gaus, Sheikh Tajuddin, Mufti Shafiqur Rahman, Mufti Abdul Hai, Mohammad Ali, Badrul, Muhibur Rahman, Kajal and Hafez Yahiya.
Senior Assistant Superintendent Meherunnesa Parul of CID, also the investigation officer of the case, submitted the charge-sheet to the Habiganj District and Sessions Judge’s Court incorporating the names of 11 more accused in the last supplementary charge-sheet before a local court yesterday afternoon.
Charges of bomb blasts and killings have been brought against them. It was the third supplementary charge sheet prepared by the CID.
Parul was appointed the Investigation Officer [IO] in the cases in January 2012. She yesterday prayed to the court for exempting the three accused-Yusuf Bin Sharif, Abu Bakar Abdul Karim and Ahsan Ullah-from the previous charge-sheet.
“We have submitted the supplementary charge sheet against 35 people. Of them, 11 were newly added,” Parul said.
Five people, including SAMS Kibria, were killed and 70 others injured in a grenade attack on a public meeting of local Awami League at Baidder Bazar in Sadar upazila on January 27, 2005.
The day after the grenade attack, Abdul Mazid Khan, organising secretary of Habiganj district AL, filed two cases-one for murder and the other under the Explosive Substances Act-with Habiganj Sadar Police Station.
Assistant Superintendent of CID Munshi Atique submitted a charge-sheet against 10 BNP leaders and activists on March 19, 2005.
On June 20, 2011, CID Senior Assistant Superintendent Mohammad Rafiqul Islam submitted a supplementary charge-sheet incorporating the names of 14 more people, including former state minister for home Lutfozzaman Babar and Mufti Hannan, following a naraji petition filed by the plaintiff.
Upon an appeal by the complainant, the High Court on May 5, 2006 stayed the proceedings of the cases. Following another appeal by the complainant, the tribunal on May 14, 2006 ordered further investigation into the cases.
After further probe, Rafiqul submitted the first supplementary charge-sheet to a Habiganj magistrate’s court on June 20, 2011, naming 14 more people, including Lutfozzaman Babar, ex-state minister for home, and Mufti Abdul Hannan, chief of banned militant outfit Huji, as accused in the cases.
Meanwhile, Asma Kibria, wife of the slain minister, filed a petition with a local court expressing no confidence in the investigation. The court then forwarded the case documents along with the petition to the tribunal concerned.
Later, the tribunal on January 5, 2012 ordered the CID to carry out further probe into the killing.
But the trial in the two cases did not begin even nine years after the filing of the cases.
During the BNP-led government’s tenure in 2005, the home ministry assigned Munshi Atiqur Rahman of the CID as the IO in the two cases. He submitted a charge sheet on March 20, 2005, accusing 10 people, including local BNP activists, of involvement in the attack.
